In Birmingham, Ala., a judge began arming herself after the deputies assigned to her courtroom were pulled to save money.

In Maine, metal detectors sit unused in the state’s busiest courthouse after budget cuts forced court officials to choose between reducing services or cutting back on security.

While nothing that extreme is happening in New Jersey, a lack of money and manpower is forcing the sheriff’s departments that provide court security here to take other measures to ensure courthouses remain safe:

• Sheriff’s officers in a number of counties have been pulled from other duties to make sure courthouses have the security required by the state Administrative Office of the Courts, providing 100 percent screening of every person who walks in the courthouse doors, including employees, and guard courtrooms.

• Warrants aren’t being served as quickly in many counties because officers who serve them have been reassigned to courthouses.

• In Middlesex County, about 70 sheriff’s officers are assigned to two courthouses in New Brunswick on any given day but few, if any, are assigned to the civil courtrooms.

• In Essex County, which has the largest court docket among county court systems, sheriff’s officers, who could be serving warrants, secure a four-block radius, including parking lots and decks, around the courthouse complex.

"We’re stealing from Peter to pay Paul," said Somerset County Sheriff Frank Provenzano, who is also president of the New Jersey Sheriffs’ Association.

Provenzano said his budgets have been cut for three years and he knows "we’re not going to get added manpower."

"We have to juggle the schedules due to manpower issues (vacations, illness) and the demands of the courts," he said.

Undersheriff Vincent De Trolio, who handles staffing in the Union County Sheriff’s Department, said departments around the state have found themselves in a perfect storm.

The sheriff’s departments are funded through the county freeholders, not the state. Most have been subjected to hiring freezes, although, in Middlesex, the sheriff can replace officers who retire or leave.

"We have to do more with less," De Trolio said. "We have (fewer) resources and the state tends to mandate but doesn’t pay."

Middlesex County Sheriff Joseph Spicuzzo said the lack of manpower in his office has forced him to pay overtime to officers so warrants and other court documents can be served.

"We are feeling the pinch," Spicuzzo said. "The freeholders are working with us, but they have constraints, too."

There is a hiring freeze in county government, but the freeholders allow Spicuzzo to hire an officer if one retires or leaves.

But, Michael Barbieri, the chief sheriff’s officer in Middlesex County, said it takes 18 months of training for a newly hired officer to be able to work in the courthouse.

Barbieri said the 70 officers assigned to the two courthouses in New Brunswick, "are way less than I need."

"Volatility in courthouses has increased with more incidents, especially in Family Court," he said. "Sept. 11, (2001) put the icing on the cake. From then on, everyone (entering courthouses in New Jersey) has to get screened."

Barbieri said he needs about 35 more officers, but knows he won’t be getting them. There are 283 sworn officers, including investigators in the entire department.

One way he has compensated for the lack of officers is to staff only criminal and family courts, leaving civil courtrooms without guards.

"Unlike many counties, we don’t provide officers in the civil courts," Barbieri said, adding that the decision is one Superior Court Judge Travis Francis, the assignment judge, has vehemently objected to.

"We’ll do the best we can and hope we have a calm year," he said.

Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura said protecting the courts "is our top priority" and he has no issue pulling officers from other areas to staff courthouse security.

The last fatal shooting in a courthouse in New Jersey occurred in 1993 in Essex County, Fontoura said, when a man gunning for the chief witness and the judge in his cousin’s drug trial shot and killed a Newark police detective and seriously wounded a sheriff’s officer. A worker in the courthouse brought the gun in because employees weren’t screened.

"We’ve had first hand tragedy in this courthouse, so we make this our top priority," Fontoura said. He said the 1993 incident led to the requirement that everyone who enters the courthouse complex must be screened, including employees, a requirement that eventually spread around the state.

"Since then, we have not had incidents," Fontoura said. "We seized knives and sometimes guns. We take care of business."